OPINION: Criticism of last week’s conviction of three Google executives has focused on Italy’s legal system. That focus risks missing a wider point. Web hosts are unfairly exposed all across the EU and two legal changes are needed.

For now we can only speculate on the court’s reasons. Regardless of what they were, though, the circumstances of the case highlight two problems with EU law’s treatment of internet intermediaries.

It could be three months before we get the court’s full explanation for convicting Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer and former Chief Financial Officer George Reyes. That judgment will explain why they were held responsible for a video that showed an autistic child being bullied by Turin school pupils, a video that appeared on the Italian site of Google Video in 2006.

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